N132-130 TITLE: Rapid Synthetic Environment Tool for Virtual Battlespace 2 (VBS2)

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Human Systems

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Squad Immersive Training Environment (SITE) (IV) and ADSUDM FNC CMP-15-09

OBJECTIVE: Develop tools for Marines and Sailors to produce and modify VBS2 compatible simulation terrain databases, including building interiors, using government or commercial geospatial data or other means; e.g. Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems.

DESCRIPTION: VBS2 is a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) simulation system used by the USMC, the Navy and the Army. VBS2 comes with a tool called Visitor 4 that can take data such as Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED), Imagery, and Shapefiles and output a VBS2 formatted database. This tool and other commercially available ones are much too difficult for non-simulation developers to use and some of them are expensive to license. We need a powerful tool to create VBS2 databases that can be used by Marines with limited technical expertise. In addition to building databases, we need tools that will allow instructors and trainees to modify terrain databases to reflect what they see on the ground. This is particularly important for the interior layouts of buildings, which are not typically available from DoD sources. In addition, buildings are often damaged or destroyed in military operations and the database should be able to rapidly reflect that.

PHASE I: Develop approaches to enable Marines and Sailors to rapidly build geospecific terrain databases for use in VBS2. In addition to importing available geospatial data, the tools should allow warfighters simple methods to improve and tailor the databases to their needs. This can be software applications, handheld hardware, or a combination.

PHASE II: Develop, demonstrate, and validate the capabilities identified in Phase I. Submit appropriate and necessary regulatory documents for testing using human participants. Validate the ability to import geospecific terrain into VBS2 and tailor the terrain and associated databases within a reasonable period of time through empirical evaluations with Marines with limited technical expertise.

PHASE III: The tools will either be stand-alone software or integrated into VBS2. It is expected that these tools will be used as part of ADSUDM and SITE to build realistic real-world terrain for training.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: These technologies can be applied to the gaming industry to make development of games faster, less expensive, and more realistic. They may also be applied as a future mapping technology.

REFERENCES:
1. Synthetic Terrain Generation: Best Practices, v.99 Final Draft http://c4i.gmu.edu/researchPgms/pdfs/SIMCI%20Terrain%20Best%20Practices%20June%202012.pdf

2. Geospatial Data Use in M&S, Stanzione, T, Proceedings of the June 15, 2010 NDIA Systems Engineering Modeling and Simulation Committee, http://www.ndia.org/Divisions/Divisions/SystemsEngineering/Documents/Committees/M_S%20Committee/2010/June%202010/NDIA-SE-MS_2010-06-15_Stanzione.pdf

KEYWORDS: VBS2; DTED; Synthetic Natural Environment; Terrain; simulation; modeling

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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